Dungeons, Dragons and Deep Connections

I've always been invested in 'nerdy' hobbies. I collect comic books, I cosplay as my favourite characters and I play more games than most people I know; however I don't believe you have experienced the wonders of the nerds world until you have experienced at least one thrilling Dungeons & Dragons campaign.

People always told me that D&D was a game where you could be anything, do anything, live as someone else for an hour, a day, as long as you liked: so I decided I wanted to be an all powerful puppet master. That's right, I am the Dungeon Master. For those of you that aren't yet versed in the technical terms of what may be considered the nerdiest game of all time, the dungeon master (or DM) is responsible for carrying the players through the story, almost like a narrator. They build the world, all characters that the players can interact with, all combat, all traps. They control what can or can't happen, and the consequences of players actions. And so, I became the DM.

My campaign started small, 2 players. One heavily resembling a large bird of prey, with a small dragon that they adopted who took naming his character very seriously: Craw Crawcraw; the other an overly enthusiastic bard who wants to know the meaning of all life: Relores. They arrived in a mysterious world in which they are on a quest to find and uncover the truth of the labyrinth, built by the gods. To find the labyrinth, they are roaming the land searching for keys, solving puzzles, finding treasure and of course disturbing the locals.

My first session involved a crudely drawn map of the island, and some fairly mundane characters with extraordinarily unoriginal names; but the more my players questioned, the more meaningful my world became. There are 10 gods in my world, each with their own unique abilities. Each god has a guild that is associated with them, and each guild has a symbol. The guilds fight, the gods fight, the kingdoms fight. There is politics, religion, crime, law, relationships, even regulars at the taverns to complain about the cost of mead. And so, as my world progressed, so must my preparation.

Since session 1, I have made SO MANY things for my players. They have handmade dice bags that I sew; logic puzzles that I invent; maps and books and codes that I craft. It's not uncommon to see me cutting up tiny tokens, miniature puzzles or guild patches late into my evenings! This is of course helped by the fact that my party has grown to 7 or 8 consistent players, plus a couple of irregular extras! If a player joins a guild, I will embroider a patch for their characters with the guild symbol (that I had to learn how to digitally draw for). Occasionally we have themed snacks, themed drinks, themed ANYTHING!

Then of course there are the holiday specials! Every holiday, they get a themed session. For Christmas they had to help Santa find stolen presents. For Halloween, they completed an exorcism. These specials always require a little extra decoration, some extra special snacks and of course, extra gifts!

If someone had told me 2 years ago that one day I would have this many friends that actively want to listen to my stories, I’d have said you were crazy; yet somehow, here I am. My party is ever expanding, and each person that gets sucked into my world of magic and wonder eventually becomes one of my closest friends. In a perfect world I would spend all my time making props, maps and more for my campaigns. In an even more perfect world, someone would pay for me to make those things, but alas!

All I can say is thank you D&D, you’ve given me a hobby, a creative outlet, and 8 lifelong friends.